The Weight of Gratitude

Dear Amanda,

I usually don't like to count my blessings in terms of it could be worse. I'd rather list the beautiful things than list the things that aren't ugly. As in "I'm so grateful for this delicious orange juice" rather than framing it as "I'm so grateful that my family isn't starving." I take it as a challenge to celebrate whatever is going right in my life, to purposefully be positive in my thanks. And, it ends up making me feel lighter and more cheerful--which to be honest is the reason I count my blessings most of the time.

via János Csongor Kerekes

But sometimes, we need to embrace the heavy side of gratitude.

Sometimes we need to approach the alter of life and examine the depths of suffering that we could be suffering but aren't. In the sincerest humility acknowledge that through luck or providence or anything besides own merits, we've been spared. It's a sad gratitude that weeps for the child brides, the lost soldiers, the refugees, the helpless witnesses to disease and addiction. Deep gratitude for loving parents, for a safe childhood, for never needing to choose who in my family will eat tonight, can only be realized in light of the grave reality that there are many who cannot be grateful for those things.

 

We can't always be aware of the water we swim in. No one can go through life with the weight of human suffering  constantly on their minds, but we can only be half grateful if we never think about it either.

My life is a precious, gilded gift I do not deserve nor will ever deserve. The lack of ugliness is itself breathtakingly beautiful, which makes the good things all the more exquisite. Like music, the major cadences are much more brilliant for the darkness of the minor chords. I know it's a cliche, but it's a profound one.

One of my favorite aspects of 1984 was how the words were stolen to keep people content-- double-bad, bad, good, double-good--- four words (well 6, actually) to describe the entire range of emotion. Without the words to frame emotions, people lost the ability to perceive their own feelings. Likewise if we limit our emotional life to the upper end of emotions--- a bad day is when we've lost our car keys. In that, we've lost the meaning of the word bad and we've lost something about our perception of goodness as well.

That's the long-winded way of saying that like everyone, I have problems I'm dealing with, but that doesn't diminish how double-plus wonderful my life is.

I were but little happy, if I could say how much

--William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 

I'll leave you with more transcendent music to ponder to

The best of Fridays,
Stephanie